Tag Archives: Cameras

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lx3 v2.1 1:1

While I suffer with what I shall call VogelschweinSARSgrippe, and ponder whether I can arrive in as many cities as I did empty of SARS and depart leaving a trail of disease (unlikely as I have no immediate plans to visit airports), I shall delight in firmware.

Many things I like about my LX3, (some not so much – mainly the lack of a longer zoom and distortion at both ends of) but one I was uhhh… quite drooling when I heard of its arrival in the version 2.1 firmware. 1:1 format. Square in other words. To add to the 16:9, 3:2 and 4:3 ratios already affixed to the barrel.

Other exciting things including exposure compensation to +/-3 stops in 1/3 increments, white balance bracketing, and faster auto-focus induce much happiness, but… 1:1!!! Excitement. Somehow in the current frenzy of widescreen 16:9 or even greater, there is something very satisfying in a square image. It’s a different approach to composition that seems to suit how I look at things.

(Shall try and blog more also…)

1:1 first shot, lens cleaning fluid 1:1 first shot, lens cleaning fluid

senefelderstr sunset, very pink senefelderstr sunset, very pink

senefelderstr hinterhof senefelderstr hinterhof

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riding home at night

Many other photos to show, of shibari chrome sex robots, and a nach dienstschluss mit Katrin, whom I am designing her portfolio website. Not coding, just design. I seem to have a lot of thoughts of coding and design at the moment, and also dance and making. Nice, comfortable, familiar to feel this.

I bike along Karl-Liebknecht-Str in the morning and then again evening. This was a flat concrete apron, devoid of structures, then a monstrous digging pit, now, late in darkness, I ride home and have my camera, so… mmm I’ve been wanting to photograph these things at night in Berlin.

polishing concrete polishing concrete

prefab concrete prefab concrete

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leaving the brauerei

For the last nine months, I’ve been living in a beautiful, isolated small apartment, by virtue of being on a hill, high above Berlin. By virtue also of an empty Brauerei returning to wilderness. Plants, shrubs, possibly even young trees are sprouting from its eaves and gutters and roof. For winter it was a mesmerising dance of muted colour under snow and weak light. Summer brought with it a jungle, rich saturated vegetation, the brilliant greens jumping out of the tan and red brickwork and slate tiles.

Today I leave. Cleaning. Packing almost done. I slept in, even. A rarity when only on the weekend do I have time to dance, but for this morning, a more leisurely approach to this day felt needed.

I have accumulated much in the past nine months. Well, much for me. The two suitcases I arrived with have swollen to number four additional bags. I move north then, the view is not comparable, and while it is a pretty and homely place I go to, I am leaving somewhere I could have easily spent years in.

Impermanence. Wondering how long will I stay anywhere, and when friends remain in one home for three years and I make my way through a clutch of countries in that time… More than one year in Berlin. Yes, planning on new things again, more dance, more attention to the things that interest me… a solo of course. Yes, as unsurprising as what I wrote in November was, so should that last remark be equally unsurprising.

Photos then. The Brauerei last night, as a storm moved in. Autumn is pushing back sumer, at first in the cooler nights, then whole days of inclement grey, rain, and lowering skies. Still not the burdening and monotone expanse of deep autumn, and still yet days of summer to arrive, but unlike those days in March, bursting out of winter, when we lay on the grass beside Engelbecken, soaking in warmth and brightness, these days hold the imminent coming of the coldest season.

bötzow brauerei - roofs and jungle bötzow brauerei – roofs and jungle

bötzow brauerei - walls, windows and jungle bötzow brauerei – walls, windows and jungle

bötzow brauerei - as it is bötzow brauerei – as it is

bötzow brauerei - to fernsehturm bötzow brauerei – to fernsehturm

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night and trees

I saw my darling Ivo perform last night at Halle. Sublimely brilliant and I shall attempt to write something on that. I took my camera because I hoped to take some things of him. Sadly no. Though I played in the darkness before, wondering over dark light photography.

Playing then, in Manual mode and Shutter Priority with ISO, aperture, shutter speed and focal length. I discover (well compared to my camera phone anyway) useable and beautiful things. Up to ISO 800 is ok, though there is smeariness from the image processing, I forgot to turn off because I forgot about it. (Oh, a little blurriness also because of slow shutter speed, around 1/15 to 1/20). Pushing the exposure two stops also helps bring in more light, though at the expense of what, I’m not sure. Aperture at 2 or 2.8 also lets more in, like opening faucet. It would be nice to try with a tripod for longer exposures with lower ISO and smaller aperture maybe, but even these to me have an attraction.

halle entrance halle entrance

halle trees 1 halle trees 1

halle trees 2 halle trees 2

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brauerei fast fertig

Soon I will have to leave my beloved hobo dachgeschoss. Eight months, surely one of the most beautiful homes in Berlin, and of all the many I have lived in, the peach. Coming up the stairs each night, home. I wander around in underpants and a t-shirt, or naked. No curtains, but then who is to see when my outlook is the brauerei. I had hoped to see her through to winter, a full year. Perhaps I will somehow anyway, on occasional visits.

I go to Brussels tomorrow, for the weekend. Fleeing Berlin as I perhaps prone to do, though never have the velocity to escape. A short holiday adventure. Things afoot. Plans, future, anticipation. It is nice to feel this again.

I couldn’t pick one I liked so I decided on all. I’m very taken by the 4:3 aspect ratio on my camera, very square and somehow conveys a sense of depth that suits the wide angle of the lens at least as much as the 16:9 ratio does. It is time to do yoga and pack though.

bötzow brauerei - 1 bötzow brauerei – 1

bötzow brauerei - 2 bötzow brauerei – 2

bötzow brauerei - 3 bötzow brauerei – 3

bötzow brauerei - 4 bötzow brauerei – 4

bötzow brauerei - 5 bötzow brauerei – 5

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plants vs brauerei

Somehow I stumbled back onto a couple who inspired my greatly years ago when I first started computers and design and… then they were doing beautiful things with Flash, now yes, well still bits of Flash, but also WordPress and other things. I seem to follow without being aware of it.

He has a video, shooting HD macro with a Nikon D90, and I thought, “oh! I have a camera. It shoots HD. I like Macro. I wonder…” I wonder can I combine aperture priority with manual focus or the macro lens setting with HD video somehow to get those beautiful to me out of focus backgrounds and crisp flecks of detail? It was getting dark, or towards, towards twilight. Then I spent an hour maybe in Final Cut, trimming six minutes down to 52 seconds.

I wonder if someone who bakes might enjoy the view, and her Oma’s plants? I wonder if someone with Audiogeräte might like to play with tiny films?

plants vs brauerei

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nahe brauerei, sonnenblumen getötet

Playing with my camera yesterday during the rain, ah summer in Berlin would like to be tropical, but I miss dearly the blanketing humidity of Guangzhou, skin moist to melting even, it changes a body. Daniel has left this city, and tomorrow shall fly east and south to Adelaide. Not till December shall I see him again, unless I scurry west to where they will be touring in November.

Ballet today, seeing my body change from not experiencing the intensity of physical life is not pleasurable. It accelerates aging, this sloth. Ah but… plans… Plans at least to return to the Sunflowers Christian brought here early July, which have died, dried in places, rotted in others, small bugs strewn on the petals and around, where they fell, dead.

Playing with shallow depth of field again, and using Aperture Priority with manual focus. I dirty my lens and think I shall buy lens cleaner, a screen protector, and the beautiful Panasonic LX3 case. Also plans for neutral density lens filter, a polarising one, and I have heard there are infrared ones which fit, though the lens does show up a hot spot.

The manual focus on my camera is a joy, a rectangle in the middle magnifying the scene and the focus is very easy to see. Ah but shaking hands, so instead I try the opposite, set a focal distance between 1 and 3cm, and then take the shot and see what comes out. Of course the Brauerei is in the background.

sunflower 1, f/2 ISO 80 1/320sunflower 1, f/2 ISO 80 1/320

sunflower 2, f/2 ISO 80 1/250 sunflower 2, f/2 ISO 80 1/250

sunflower 3, f/2 ISO 80 1/1300 sunflower 3, f/2 ISO 80 1/1300

sunflower 4, f/2 ISO 80 1/1000

sunflower 5, f/2 ISO 80 1/640 sunflower 5, f/2 ISO 80 1/640

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a plant a brewery

Learning more of depth of field and finally moving into the full manual mode on my LX3. It has a delightful magnified rectangle to assist in manual focus. I have discovered I get a nice background blur on non-macro shots if I use the macro setting. Not sure if this is acceptable camera behaviour, but I do have a habit of “what happens if I…” … “…oops…”

(one day I shall write entirely in ellipses)

A juicy plant on the windowsill, naturally the Brauerei is in the background. I was thinking of using my mobile phone as an external lightsource or flash. I’m less concerned with nice photos and so on than in learning the technique of this camera. I had thoughts about the autofocus that follows the subject and mmm… a lot to learn.

I am taken by the 3:2 format though, quite square and has an unusual depth that 16:9 or even the usual 4:3 misses, like falling towards the horizon over the landscape inbetween. For the moment it is my favourite, perhaps especially because I have never played with it before.

plant brewery f/2 1/160 ISO 80 plant brewery f/2 1/160 ISO 80

brauerei und alex, nochmal, häusermeer brauerei und alex, nochmal, häusermeer

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brauerei, alex im hintergrund

More playing with my camera. I wondered why shooting at f/4 was leaving the background in wide-angle shots a bit blurry… today I discover such shots are better done at f/22 or so. I leaned out my window yesterday and saw Alex and the ‘turm. I discover the dynamic black and white mode is rather popular, learn a little about HDR, discover the 3:2 format produces some delightful depth yet annoyingly angled barrel distortion, wonder how to solve that… read more on things I suspect I shall need soon. Learning my beloved camera.

brauerei und fernsehrturm brauerei und fernsehrturm

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today i learned about depth of field

(Inbetween learning about search engine optimisation, Google Analytics… other…)

I have a book which is a basic introduction to DSLR cameras. I purloined it in the hope I could have revealed to me some of the arcane aspects of manual photography. In the course of reading on such things as bracketing and other such wonders frequently qualified with the statement, “only in dslr cameras”, the book, showing it’s age as not from this year led me to look through the LX3 manual quite frequently. Wherein I discovered everything including multi-point autofocus.

So it dawned on me fully, in which was my reason for buying this camera, it is more a DSLR in a compact body than a compact with DSLR abilities. Maybe it doesn’t have the same physical sensor size and no optical viewfinder (unless I buy one), but! f/2.0! Depth of field anyone?

Which is a simple-ish thing I am just beginning to grasp requiring the A in PASM. Here I get to set the aperture value, bigger is better. Hence f/2.0. Closer is good and bigger focal length also, though this hits the LX3′s one limit, only 60mm.

Anyway, depth of field is how in or out of focus everything is in front of and behind the one thing that is the centre of attention. By doing the above, it becomes very narrow, so lots of background blur… mmm… pretty. And then I remembered my beauty has a focus setting on the lens barrel, so I set it to AF-Macro.

I preferred the other photo I look of the pen, of the pen itself I mean, this one looks a bit foreshortened, but this one also has a far more – for me – interesting background. f/2.3, focal length 7.4 or 35mm, 1/50sec, ISO 160. Less washed out in the original (will start shooting raw soon), but that would be the fault of Photoshop’s ‘save to web’ adventure.

0.5 pen from muji, desk, books, bedroom, window 0.5 pen from muji, desk, books, bedroom, window